Understanding processes
Although most FSI businesses will have a clear outline of how processes should take place internally, the reality is that often the way they are carried out differs significantly from the “text book” approach. Just as data mining was developed to help understand data sets better, process mining helps businesses finally understand of how processes are actually being carried out by the company’s application in reality The objective is to identify weak points and bottlenecks that would otherwise be difficult to spot in order to resolve them.
Efficiency and productivity with process mining
Only when a business has identified a bottleneck or a weak link in the process chain, is it possible to intervene with a solution that improves the application making it faster and more efficient. This is only possible thanks to the analysis of the application logs that are being analysed.
While the efficiency benefits clearly translate into greater productivity it is also important to remember that non-conformities in the original process could also be opening up the business to risk of non-compliance, so decisive intervention can also save the company significant remediation costs in the long run.
Where to intervene
In addition to identifying critical processes, process mining enables businesses to single out recurring, low value-added processes that can bring abundant efficiency benefits once automated via RPA. Activities that are routinely carried out by contact centres, regular checks and other repetitive admin and back office processes that involve large volumes have the most potential for improvement. In alternative to introducing automation, businesses may find that simply redistributing tasks throughout the day or re-routing tasks to different teams can also have a significant impact.
Simple input for powerful outputs
To achieve these benefits all that process mining systems need are three key information points, easily retrieved via application log analysis:
- A time stamp
- An operation ID
- A sub-process unique identifier
This information is the essential part of a log system that enables the user to view on a simple dashboard the analysis of how processes are actually carried out. Additional data can be added to the log such as client name or procedure codes, so that more insight can be mapped on the dashboard.
Once the application logs have been standardized across the business, it is also possible to gain a complete 360° view of cross-application workflows across the entire business.
Unexpected obstacles
This system finally enables the business to see how processes take place in reality, revealing where bottlenecks or other impediments occur. When initially mapping out processes, the business may have believed, for example, that only 10% of clients required a second, manual screening. On running the process mining tool, however, the business may discover that the majority of clients, 90%, require this human intervention, resulting in a significant delay. Adjusting workloads to ensure that more resources are supporting this key step, loosens the bottleneck and helps achieve objectives within the desired timeframe.
Automation to the rescue
Another interesting example of a bottleneck is typically caused by evaluation processes. When these are manual, and volumes are high, there is a risk that items will remain on hold for a while before they are taken up for processing by the correct team or system.
Introducing an element of AI can help speed up this process, significantly cutting down on latency so that most paperwork can be automatically sorted and directed, while only the very few, more complex cases are sent to staff for manual review.
Fincons Group and UiPath for process mining
Fincons Group and UiPath have teamed up to help FSI businesses take a smart approach to their processes. By providing a simple tool that assesses and categorizes high-volume processes providing user-friendly visual dashboards, the two partners are offering FSI sector companies a solution to help them identify which processes are not performing as they should, thus highlighting possible areas of intervention and automation, as well as where introducing AI and RPA could help reap rewards.